Evolving

The post title mostly refers to my new tack on crafting - namely art journalling. I so love what proper artists do in little books and following Nat Kalbach's Creative Jumpstart this year has given me a , well creative jumpstart. Actually the free series she did in January 2012 did this too but it took me a whole year to get going! I think the final stimulus was the Julie Fei Fan Balzer technique video using her own stencils (which I have watched more than once). Which also meant buying more stencils. Sigh. I am so weak. Less damaging than some things I could spend money on but still...

So here is page 1

Lots of layers of stencils - mostly using Distress Ink but also a little bit of black acrylic paint added with a make up sponge and doing the "dayb ahn, dayb awf" thing that Julie Balzer says and I can't help repeating in my head as I do it (love her Noo Yawk accent) (i.e. dab some paint onto the sponge and dab it off again before putting it to paper).

The next few pages have evolved. And I started to take photos as they moved and changed. Which is quite cool. So...

This was done at the same time as my two Christmas decorations layouts. When I had sprayed the "reflections" layout using a mask, I then pressed the wet mask into the paper here. Then I swooshed it a bit with a baby wipe. Then a layer of glitter paste. Which was coloured with distress ink. Then some red stamped scrolls. Then some black stamped ink splots all around. (OK I could have photographed it in between some of these layers)

The next stage was photographed using a flash so you can see the glitter. And spot what else was added

And finally - the finished product

Not bad but I wish I had used a thinner pen for journalling with.
Here is the third page which first had a coat of gesso painted on

Then I used a zebra stencil with some chalk sprays. The stencil doesn't fit across the whole page. I outlined the stripes with black pen.

 

I made my own stencil letters by cutting out my dienamics letters and inking over the spaces. Added some Stickles dots and writing but for a long time it just wasn't done. Kept tinkering about

 Much prefer it now. Louder lines with a sharpie pen. White paint circles and a little washi tape. Stickles all over.

And finally...

one of the Creative Jumpstart videos was about just letting paint be swooshed and dripped and splattered and then see what you can see. In the vid the resultant flower shapes were left there and the rest of the colour was gessoed out but I did something different.

Here is my finished painted bit.

I looked and first all I could see was a mess

And then I saw a tree just left of centre. So I outlined that and then added a stamped title and a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer about waiting and seeds. And I loved it

After adding the writing I saw more trees and bushes so outlined them too

My favourite page so far.

Except that I then decided that the title needed some white. And I went for enamel dots. Which has turned out to be a bit of a mistake. So this page still needs some evolving.

And I do too.

The pattern of life that I have developed here needs to evolve and change - one of the things I have realised is that there is an awful lot of time taken up with meeting with other people in various ways. Which is fabulous! But I am an introvert and do need times on my own to recharge my batteries. I am hoping to evolve my art journal to be a place of spiritual reflection and creative prayer - my last page points the way towards that and I need to find a way to make space to do it.